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Archive for January, 2016

I would like to interrupt our regularly scheduled programming to bring you the book lover’s 7 booktag! Do steal it and pass it around. You can do it on Facebook, too…

A Book or Author You Wish More People Had Read:

The Scorpio Races!!! Everyone seems to have read Maggie Stiefvater’s Shiver series (which I don’t like) or her Raven Boys series (which is fine) but The Scorpio Races is by far her best. It won the Printz Award, a screenplay is being written and it is my most hearted book. Like, ever.

A BRILLIANT Book or Author You Just Discovered:

I adored Call the Midwife by Jennifer Worth! The audiobook was absolutely lovely, and I couldn’t stop thinking about this memoir. A fascinating look into the social problems, healthcare and midwifery of the 1950s east end.

A Book or Author That Has Been On Your TBR List For WAY TOO LONG:

I have been meaning to read Wild Seed by Octavia E. Butler for WAY TOO LONG, people, way, way too long. Ever since I read about it in Donald Maass’s Writing The Breakout Novel. Which was long ago. So I just checked it out and I’ll let you know what I think of it.

Your Last Guilty Pleasure Read:

Hehe. Vampire Academy. I was quite surprised by the character-building and the structure in Mead’s world. I particularly liked the social fabric between the guardians and the Moroi–the stigma of being a “blood whore,” the single-mother situation among the female guardians, etc. That was really well developed and added credibility to the world.

A Book You Are Proud to Have Recently Finished:

The Penguin Guide to the Constitution, I suppose. *BRAG*

An Author or Genre You Need to Read More of:

I tend toward children’s and YA because they’re quicker and often happier, so I need to read more adult fiction, particularly sci-fi and epic fantasy. Asimov, Brent Weeks, Mercedes Lackey, Vonnegut, etc.

A Book or Author that Really Is Next TBR:

Well, I’m currently alternating among three: Brandon Sanderson’s lively Mistborn: The Final Empire, Flannery O’Connor’s terrifying Wise Blood & the fascinating The Nations Within by Deloria and Lytle. After that? Wild Seed and probably The Martian.

I would love to hear your answers to the 7 questions! Link me to your post, if you do the tag.

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Premise: When terrorists attack San Francisco, killing thousands, the city becomes a police state. Techy teenager Marcus and his equally savvy friends are caught in the middle, interrogated by the Department of Homeland Security for crimes they did not commit. When Marcus is finally released, he decides to show the DHS why their invasive tactics fail.

About: I was super excited to read this book, having recently heard a lot about Rand Paul’s filibuster on civil liberties. I confess, though, when I first read this book, I rolled my eyes at all the talk about a “police state.” But a few days later, the San Bernardino shooting rocked my state and this book became a little more relevant.

In this book, Marcus argues that terrorists are only getting better at avoiding our counter-measures. And unless we are improving at the same rate or more quickly, how can we expect to stay ahead of the game? We can’t. So when US-loving hackers like Marcus, the thoroughly teenaged rebel protagonist, find ways around security, we should be grateful that they pointed out the loophole before a terrorist did. This is one of the points Marcus tries to make to the DHS. They don’t appreciate this work, however—they bully him for making their jobs more difficult.

Overall: I honestly found Marcus more than a little obnoxious, but, well, my husband is in law-enforcement. Other than the lack of character sympathy (character-development took a backseat to worldbuilding and thematic development), this novel sports great techno writing, a believable (and foreseeable) Dystopia and an unusual take on civil liberties, hackers and whistleblowers. There’s nothing else out there like this book, for teens, that’s for sure.

Recommendation: YA, Adults-who-YA, Dystopia-addicts.

***3/5 STARS for uniqueness

Awards: Hugo Award Nominee for Best Novel (2009), Nebula Award Nominee for Best Novel (2008), Locus Award Nominee for Best Young Adult Book (2009), Golden Duck Award for Hal Clement Award for Young Adult (2009), Sunburst Award for Young Adult (2009)

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About: A new generation of pioneers seeks sanctuary from our dying earth in a mission to a new planet. Only the patient, whole-minded Quakers have worked out the challenges to turn these theoretical missions into a reality. This literary hard sci-fi follows the takeoff, the problems encountered during the mission and the effects of those challenges on the very human community that rises to meet them. Published 1998, Adult Sci-fi. Awards: 1998 Oregon Book Award Nominee for Fiction (Finalist). A NYTimes Notable Book.

The Short of It: This book will appeal to a certain kind of reader, certainly, because of its carefully crafted tech details, people and atmosphere. I care about two of the three (people and atmosphere), so I liked it. The complaint I hear most often (and agree with) is that the plot moves very slowly.

What I Loved: (1) The setting and descriptions work with other elements to create pitch-perfect tone in this novel of “the new frontier.” It’s beautiful and bleak, a real gem. (2) Molly Gloss slows down each moment so you can understand the psychology of each moment, sensation and act of humanity—grief, adultery, lust, fear, etc.—and you grow to care for these flawed people because you see yourself in them. (3) I also loved the cultural vision and authentic feeling of the Quaker meetings, both the personal and collective experiences of them. They feel very genuine, neither sentimental nor unfeeling. Having attended small religious meetings all my life, I was tickled to recognize the characters in the Quaker meetings: the elder, the blah-blah-er, the gossip, the elderly, etc.

What I Didn’t Love: (1) A few things didn’t ring quite true—such as when a God-fearing person refers to humans as animals. Maybe futuristic Quakers will accept a completely naturalistic explanation of life, in which humans are considered animals; but I doubt that this will ever be a majority opinion among spiritual communities (although I have very little familiarity with Quaker theology). I think the reverence for our humanity, the thing that separates us from animals, is too great for that sort of casual comment. It sounds like agnosticism trying to mask itself as theology.

But those moments are comparatively rare. Gloss got the important thing right, namely that for all the truthful, searing human folly present in every character, there is also a certain peace about the community that rings just as true.

(2) The plot is a bit of a snore, although the tension in the writing still kept me reading. The structure and purpose of the book were better formed than they are in your typical character or plot driven novels. This novel was more “idea-driven,” or, as Orson Scott Card might have put it in his Writing Science Fiction and Fantasy, “milieu-driven.” The wandering plot feels designed to mirror the wandering quality of a Quaker’s movements in the spiritual realm—waiting for the spirit to speak through them to the community at large. Waiting. Listening. Then, perhaps, speaking.

Other Comments: There is some very technical jargon about the ship and the theories of survival. I don’t really understand or care about those, but I thought I’d mention them in case they matter to someone else.

Recommendation: For adults who love thoughtful, literary sci-fi and for readers wanting an intro to hard-sci-fi (because the book is rather short).

***3 stars for character, atmosphere and cohesive vision.

Favorite Quote: “When people are feeling the weight of their own lives, they want to see the life other animals are given, and there is something mysterious and revealing about the discarded machinery of birds’ lives. In abandoned flakes of eggshell, emptied seed cases, the hollow stems of cottongrass, in the delicate attenuated backbones of fish and the teeth of desiccated crustaceans, you can sometimes glimpse the bare and intricate structures of God” (239).